Upselling Based On Browsing? Patented!

from the poor-sales-people dept

A few weeks ago, I was in a sporting goods store and happened to sit in a camping chair. The sales person came over to me and suggested I check out their new camping chairs found on the other side of the tents they had displayed. There was nothing unique about this -- as having a salesperson recommend other products to you based on ones you're looking at is a fairly common occurrence in shopping. Apparently, though, the folks at the patent office never do that kind of shopping, because they've awarded Amazon a patent for presenting recommendations based on your browsing history. Yes, the difference is that it's "online," but just because you take something from the offline world and move it to the online one, doesn't make it patentable. In fact, it would seem that any such easy comparison should be used as part of an obviousness test.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 28 Jun 2005 @ 9:46pm

    Rob You Blind

    Yeah, but shouldn't there be a patent on stealing people's contact lenses and selling them online? I know a place where police are looking for a pervert-thief who has attacked young men at least 8 times, snatching their contact lenses or glasses.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 29 Jun 2005 @ 7:53am

      Re: Rob You Blind


      It wasn't you snatching their contacts dorpus ... it was having to read your drivel.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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